I like sports in which nobody dies

The German, recognized as the greatest luger in history, says speed had nothing to do with the death of Nodar Kumaritashvili.

The 21-year-old Kumaritashvili died following a crash at the Whistler Sliding Centre on Friday. The track is the fastest in the world and sliders have had difficulty with it in training this week.

With the track now officially being deadly, many of us figured that perhaps the luge should be canceled.

It’s one of my favorite sports to watch at the Winter Games, but I don’t want to watch somebody die.

Officials decided to raise a retaining wall and this morning announced that they would start lower on the track to try to prevent sliders from reaching the near 95-miles-per-hour speeds most were getting to.

But Hackl, who won medals at five Games (including gold medals in three consecutive Olympics), told Berlin newspaper Tagesspiegel that slight changes to the track are unnecessary.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with speed,” Hackl said according to Reuters. “Whether that happens at (37 or 95 mph) makes no difference. At 60 kilometers per hour (37 mph), he would have been dead, too.

“It’s a track that is faster than all other tracks we know. It’s a challenge for all athletes to master that track and they have made it, including the Georgian, until that tiny driving error.”

Officials said Kumaritashvili had made 26 runs on the track before the fatal accident.

Hackl’s a bad boy, but most lugers are somewhat nuts.

President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili put it best.

“One thing I know for sure is that no sports mistake is supposed to lead to a death,” he said. “No sports mistake is supposed to be fatal. Mistakes do happen in sport, but we are talking about sports where there is competitiveness, where there is danger, but we should avoid whatever cause of death could be.

“Questions were asked about this place. There were some suggestions that the wall should have been higher there (at the site of accident) because there was eventuality of this happening.

“Good news is that they’ve built it now, but I think the best news would be in the future, listen more to the grievances of sportsmen, listen more to the sensitivities and we don’t have to do things in the aftermath.”

Ruben Gonzalez, a motivational speaker from Katy who representing his native Argentina here in the luge, said Kumaritashvili did make a couple crucial mistakes, but that the track didn’t have proper safety precautions that might have prevented his death.

“The problem was that there was not a retaining wall to keep people from flying into all those metal light posts,” Gonzalez wrote in an e-mail to the Chronicle’s David Barron. “… if there had been a longer protective barrier past the end of the finish curve, Nodar would have not flown out of the track and hit the pole. He would have bounced back into the track and would probably be fine.”

watching this i wonder, why arent there more black people in bobsledding?

any fight fan will tell you blacks typically have a huge reach advantage on other races.

so as i watch this sport that im not familiar with, i cant help but notice that how one pushes off to start probably determines the winner more often than not. that being the case, i would assume a larger wingspan/longer arms would be advantageous.

or is this a racist question too?

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Not a racist question, though I’ve never heard the longer arms theory. Plus, arm length has far less to do with bobsled success than speed. As for blacks in bobsled, there have been a few black medal-winners, but it is a pretty exclusive sport – there are only two tracks in the United States – so not many of any race have the opportunity to participate.

I like that sport that looks like they’re playing shuffleboard on ice. Curling, I think it’s called. No one dies there unless someone were to get mad and heave their big slider rock upside someone’s skull.

I don’t want to question the reading skills of any of you, but did I say somewhere that I don’t like sports in which a competitor has ever died? Or did I actually say luge is one of my favorite sports. … You can read it again, or just keep listing sports in which someone ever died.

Unforgiveable negligent responsibility for an unnecessary death! Hackl is right, hitting a steel pole with your head at any sledding speed would be very dangerous or fatal. It is obvious that they should have had a protective wall there BEFORE a young man died – this was a failure of leadership from those responsible. Several people (the boss and advisors) will live with this unnecessary death on their heads even if they are not held responsible in civil or criminal court.

In response to your question, the headline to this post reads: I like sports in which nobody dies. This may be a headline the editors came up with, and not you, but I think this is why people are reacting like they are to your post.

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Fair point, and you’re right, I don’t do the headlines. The better headline would have been “I like sporting EVENTS in which nobody dies.”

I like that sport that looks like they’re playing shuffleboard on ice. Curling, I think it’s called. No one dies there unless someone were to get mad and heave their big slider rock upside someone’s skull.

Man, I remember well when my Grandpappy just keeled right over while trying to checkmate his buddy at the home. I immediately canceled my subscription to “Queen and Rook” weekly, and this was right before its big swimsuit issue. I even resigned as Boris Spassky’s fan club president, so don’t let them get you down Jerome, I too hate sports where people die…….whats the death rate in curling?

BTW, the luger died as a result of hitting the column supporting the canopy over the track. The canopy was there to keep the track from being exposed to the sun. Exposure to the sun would require a small amount of additional energy for the backup cooling system to keep the ice from warming.This additional energy was deemed to increase the site’s “carbon footprint” just a little, which would violate the promise that the Canada Olympic organizers made to the radical environmentalists, to make this “the most eco-friendly Olympics ever.”So they put up the canopy, and the columns, and the man died.You can attribute his death to the enviro-nazis. Have the family sue Algore.